Comparing him to that unhappy guest Whose deed hath made herself herself detest: At last she smilingly with this gives o'er; "Fool! Fool!" quoth she, "his wounds will not be sore.'

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow, And Time doth weary time with her complaining. She looks for night, and then she longs for

morrow,

And both she thinks too long with her remaining: Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining. Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps; And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
That she with painted images hath spent:
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others' detriment;
Losing her woes in shows of discontent.

It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
To think their dolour others have endured.

But now the mindful messenger, come back,
Brings home his lord and other company;
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black ;
And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky.
These water-galls in her dim element
Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
Amazèdly in her sad face he stares:
Iler eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and

raw,

Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares;

Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance, Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: "What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befallen, that thou dost trembling
stand?

Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent? Why art thou thus attired in discontent?

Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness, And tell thy grief, that we may give redress."

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,

Ere once she can discharge one word of woe:
At length address'd to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe;

While Collatine and his consorted lords
With sad attention long to hear her words.

And now this pale swan in her watery nest Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending: "Few words," quoth she, "shall fit the trespass

best,

Where no excuse can give the fault amending: In me more woes than words are now depending;

And my laments would be drawn out too long, To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.

"Then be this all the task it hath to say :-
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay

Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;

And what wrong else may be imaginèd

By foul enforcement might be done to me,
From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free.

"For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
And softly cried, 'Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain my love; else lasting shame

On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
If thou my love's desire do contradict.

"For some hard-favour'd groom of thine,' quoth he,

Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will, I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee,

And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill

The lechers in their deed: this act will be
My fame, and thy perpetual infamy.'

"With this I did begin to start and cry,
And then against my heart he set his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
I should not live to speak another word :
So should my shame still rest upon record,
And never be forgot in mighty Rome
The adulterate death of Lucrece and her

groom.

"Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak, And far the weaker with so strong a fear : My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;

No rightful plea might plead for justice there : His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes; And when the judge is robb'd, the prisoner dies.

"O, teach me how to make mine own excuse! Or, at the least, this refuge let me find,— Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,

Immaculate and spotless is my mind;

That was not forced; that never was inclined
To accessary yieldings, but still pure
Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure."

Lo, here, the helpless merchant of this loss, With head declined, and voice damm'd up with

woe,

With sad-set eyes, and wretched arms across,
From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so :

But, wretched as he is, he strives in vain ; What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.

As through an arch the violent-roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste,
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait that forced him on so fast;
In rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past :

Even so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw, To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.

Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth, And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh :

"Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth Another power; no flood by raining slaketh. My woe too sensible thy passion maketh

More feeling-painful: let it, then, suffice
To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

"And for my sake, when I might charm thee

So,

For she that was thy Lucrece,- -now attend me; Be suddenly revengèd on my foe,

Thine, mine, his own; suppose thou dost defend

me

From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend

me

Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die ;
For sparing justice feeds iniquity.

"But ere I name him, you, fair lords," quoth she,

(Speaking to those that came with Collatine,) "Shall plight your honourable faiths to me, With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine; For 'tis a meritorious fair design

To chase injustice with revengeful arms : Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms."

At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd:
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
The protestation stops. "O, speak," quoth
she,

"How may this forced stain be wiped from
me?